Should you invest your time and money into social media marketing or email marketing? If you’re serious about your online success, then the answer is both. However, if you’re like most business owners, you simply don’t have the time to devote to managing two separate campaigns well. The answer to this problem is to integrate the two so they work hand in hand, rather than focusing on developing two separate campaigns.

Email Vs. Social Media – Not a Competition

Some online marketing experts view email marketing and social media as a competition. They spend hours determining which is more effective, and then pour all of their resources into that one. Instead, you should view them as complementary to one another. When done right, your email marketing and social media campaigns can run hand in hand, and in the end you will benefit from greater success.

Use Software to Save Time

When you use the right email marketing software, you’ll find that it frees your time to spend monitoring the conversations happening on your social media pages. The software will manage the collection of addresses and the sending of the emails, so all you have to focus on is the content in the emails. This, in turn, allows you to tap into social media conversations to make your emails more effective and improve the number of conversions you have.

Practical Ideas to Link Email and Social Marketing

So, how can you practically link your email and social marketing campaigns? The first step is to pay attention to the social media discussions. What are your current and potential customers saying about you? Pick up on trends, and then use these to craft your emails. This is actually a great place to go to get newsletter content ideas, because you’ll be writing about what people want to know.

When you send emails, link them to your social media conversations. Refer to and then expound on Facebook posts and tweets about your business. This shows that you’re connected to the conversations, and it may convert some of your email subscribers to social media followers. In a way, your emails should be crafted as a longer, more detailed addition to the conversation, linking back to your social media pages whenever possible.

Make sure that the people who follow you on social media have a reason to subscribe to your email campaigns. If you’re giving all of the same information via your social media platforms, they won’t need to subscribe. Keep the email newsletters informative and helpful, and provide an incentive for signing up. Also, keep the sign-up forms as visible as possible on your blog and Facebook page.

Don’t forget to optimize your emails for social media platforms. Add buttons to the emails that people can use to share your articles, and provide incentives in the newsletters for them to not only join your fan pages, but also invite their friends to do so. For example, if you want to grow your Facebook page, offer a giveaway, but state that it will only happen once your reach a certain number of fans. This will encourage the reader to be a fan and also to share your page with others in order to reach that desired number. The extra fans are well worth the expense of a small giveaway.

In the end, you need to view social media and email marketing as two branches of the same tree. When managed properly, they will work hand in hand to improve your marketing efforts.

About the author: Joseph Baker has worked in the business world for over 10 years, specifically in management. He has led development and management teams, and implemented budget reductions both professionally and as an independent contractor. In addition, he has led strategic planning and systems of implementation for six organizations, both public and private, and worked extensively with small businesses.